Please Post:

We have extended the deadline for submission of abstracts to February
22, 2006. For further information, please contact jstein_at_seattleu.edu

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH-A CONFERENCE

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Gaffney Chair for Endowed Mission and the Center for the Study of
Justice in Society jointly present and invite contributions to a
Conference on AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. The conference
will be held at Seattle University from April 27-29, 2006.

This is the first of a trilogy of conferences to be held at Seattle
University devoted to the exploration of the place of peoples of African
descent in the Catholic Church. Subsequent conferences will look at the
place in the Church of New World Africans (from Canada to Chile and all
points in between) and, finally, of Continental Africans.

The AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH conference will examine
different dimensions of African American experiences in the Church.

* What are the experiences of African Americans in the Church? How
has the Church related to the African American cohort of its
congregation?

* What is the place of the Church in the lives of African Americans?
Have African Americans found in the Church the Gilead with the
proverbial balm to soothe their wounded and make them whole?

* Given the specificity of African American culture, how has it
impacted the evolution of Catholic culture in the United States? How
have African American cultural expressions-music, speech, dress,
architecture, etc.-influenced Catholic practices?

* Has the Church acknowledged and/or celebrated the African American
presence in it? What forms have such acknowledgments or celebrations
taken?

* What role did the Church play in some of the constitutive events
of American, including African American, history from the founding
through Slavery and the Slave Trade to the Civil Rights movement to the
present? What have been the Church's own narrative respecting these
events and what have been the reactions of African Americans to that
narrative?

* What is the place of African American religion and spirituality in
Catholic Theology and Liturgy? Has it impacted the celebration of the
Eucharist?

We invite papers from scholars and practitioners alike that respond to
the above questions. Conference topics will include the following:

* Growing up Black and Catholic

* Liturgy

* Black Theology: Doing Theology in a Black Key

* History of Black Catholicism

* Womanist Theology

* Black Spirituality in a Catholic Context

* African American Artistic Expressions and the Church

* Blacks Who Left the Church and Those Who Came Back

* Nonpractising Black Catholics

* Strategies of Resistance in the Church-Coping or Assimilation?

* African Musical Traditions in the Church

* African American Fraternal/Sororal Orders

* African Americans and Catholic Education

* African Americans and Catholic Social Services

Please submit 1 page abstracts for individual papers or panel proposals
to Ms. Julie Stein, jstein_at_seattleu.edu by Feb 22, 2006. There is no
registration fee to participate in the conference but all presenters
will be encouraged to register to facilitate organization. Participants
must pay their travel and accommodation expenses. Hotel accommodation
information with special conference rates will be made available to all
participants. For further information, please contact: Ms. Julie Stein
at jstein_at_seattleu.edu.

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Received on Thu Feb 02 2006 - 14:30:33 EST